Do You See How They Shine?
by Darkenning
Summary: Post-series - extremely post series - inspired by Shanejayell's "Eternal City - Crystal Tokyo".


**Do You See How They Shine?**

_Where is it that we were together? Who were you that I lived with? The brother. The friend. Darkness, light. Strife and love. Are they the workings of one mind? The features of the same face? Oh, my soul. Let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made. All things shining._ - _The Thin Red Line_

Once upon a time, there were two sisters, born of a father who was, perhaps not so good as he might have been but not so bad as he might have been either, and of a mother who, if she had ever been a good woman, had stopped being either thing some time before. Each of the two sisters, in their own way, strove to oppose their mother's plans (without knowing it in one case) and through courage, hope, love and self-sacrifice, they saved the world and each other as well. And so they hoped to live happily ever after.

Unfortunately, just a few years later, the world ended anyway.

But this particular ending was perhaps not so final as all that, and the two sisters and some of their friends slept beneath the ice that covered the world until such time as others strove to end that age and begin a new one. Whereon they woke and were freed to make their way in a world filled with happy endings, except, of course, that such a world doesn't really exist, for nothing ever truly ends, and no peace is without those who would break it.

So it was that the girl who still called herself Matoi Ryuuko found herself drafted into battle alongside allies new and old. Her foe this time was a rather embittered woman who, through methods Ryuuko didn't really understand - for she was a clever girl but not a particularly learned one - sought to restore to life fallen evils of the past, owing to a complicated but probably misguided philosophy about conflict and stagnation. Her allies were able to give her a suit of clothes which almost duplicated those she'd worn in the greatest battles of her first life, which should have been enough to turn the tide.

Alas. 'Almost' and 'should have' are words that should warn the reader.

Shaking her head to clear it, Ryuuko spat blood from her mouth as she pulled away from the impression she'd left in one of the chambers walls and took a look around. Satsuki was down, probably out for a while; Gamagoori was standing over her (and, probably not incidentally, Mako, who was trying to bring her around) and looking even worse off. The rest of the weird assembly of heroes who'd dragged her into this thing didn't look any better off ...

And the villain, standing in the weird circles of light filled with odd symbols, was smiling broadly as her chanting built to a crescendo.

"Can't let her -" she heard herself say, but the chant then ended with one last shriek.

"Rise, then, oh adversary! Rise again to oppose those who would let the world rot! Rise to fight your greatest foe!" the villain said, and with a start, Ryuuko realized that the crazy woman was pointing right at her.

And then a form began to take shape in the circle. A clearly female form.

_No,_ Ryuuko thought in horror. _Not_ her! _Not again!_

And then the form took shape, and Ryuuko realized that the world had granted her wish in a backwards manner once again - for indeed, her mother was not standing in the circle.

A bright pink ribbon nestled in hair the color of cornsilk, in coils above a rather cute face only slightly marred by a purple eyepatch.

"Oh, shit," Ryuuko murmured.

Harime Nui looked around curiously. "Hm," she said. "What an interesting development."

"Now!" the villain shrieked. "Strike down your foe!"

Nui looked at her, eyebrow raised, then glanced momentarily in Ryuuko's direction. Her lips twisted in a speculative manner.

Then, with a sigh, she answered the command. "Nah, don't think so." And without further remark or hesitation, she drove her heel at the villain's forehead, knocking her out in a probably non-fatal manner.

Ryuuko gaped. "What - what -"

Nui spoke without looking at her. "A thousand years," she said, sounding oddly like she had when posing as Nagita, so long ago. "A thousand years in the dark. It's enough to force even the greatest of villains to reconsider their ways. To think, I did wrong, and I was wrong, and I regret ... everything. Her ladyship, over there might have done well to consider that her minions would have ideas of their own." She glanced down at her hands, which were beginning to become transparent. "Ah well. It was a fun second chance while it lasted."

"Wait," Ryuuko said, shaking her head. "You, then, you -"

Nui still didn't look at her as she shook her head. "Time enough to regret, but not nearly enough to atone." Then abruptly, she did, and she was smiling, with just a bit of the old mania behind it. "Your kisses were sweet, big sister. Just thought you should know that."

Moments later, she was gone again.

That, of course, was when Mako's efforts finally awoke Satsuki, to glare at her quote-unquote doctor and say, "Stop doing that, idiot, I - Ryuuko?" she asked.

That was when Ryuuko realized that a tear was running down her cheek.

It was the only tear that any living thing ever shed for Harime Nui.

Perhaps that would be enough.


End file.
